Staying Behind
by gray-streaks
Summary: Jason makes good on a promise to Piper and then something happens that nobody saw coming. Jason/Piper, Percy/Annabeth


A/N: You might recognize the first section as something I posted last week under the same title. When I started writing the second part of this series… universe… thing, I made it 1600 words in and realized it was all part of the same fic, so I scraped it and tried again. I'm still not happy with the way this ends, but here's the whole thing.

"You're sure you don't want to come home?" Reyna says, looking skeptical, and more than a little like somebody has just ripped her heart out of her chest.

Percy can't blame her. He tries to imagine staying at Camp Jupiter, giving up his friends, his life, but he can't. He tries to imagine leaving Camp Jupiter from Jason's point of view, not only giving up friends and his old life, but the praetorship, (which okay, Percy had done that last week, wasn't so hard) and a chance at a life outside of the constant monster-bashing, a chance to have a real life. That's even harder, given half a chance, _Percy_ would go back to Camp Jupiter, but only if Annabeth could come with him.

And that's really what it all boils down to: _the girlfriend_.

He doesn't bother trying to imagine staying at Camp Jupiter because his Roman girlfriend asked him to, that would involve trying to imagine being with somebody that wasn't Annabeth and Hades if he was going to try that.

Jason swallows and twists the folded purple fabric in his arms, his toga, nervously. "You're sure, Pipes can't come?" He doesn't wait for an answer, he already knows what it is, but he also knows it isn't her fault. The legion voted to keep non-Roman demigods out of New Rome for the time being. "Yea, I'm sure." He hands the toga over and Piper grips his hand.

Reyna takes the toga slowly, like she's not sure what to do with it. Praetors don't just quit, they retire from the army, or, more often, they don't come back from a quest or they die leading the legion in battle. Jason is definitely still alive, and he's not retiring, not really. There's no protocol for this. She hesitates for a brief moment and then spins around to face the assembled legionnaires behind her. She pitches her voice to carry and calls, "Motion to put Jason in the books as retired."

Dakota raises his hand, "Seconded."

Beside him, Frank raises his own, "Motion to add Percy to that."

At the back of the formation, somebody else calls out, "Jackson's not even Roman."

A girl on left, a centurion in the third cohort that Percy doesn't remember the name of raises her hand, "I'll second it."

Reyna raises an eyebrow, "Anybody else?"

From the first, "I'll third them both."

"Anybody have any real objections?" Reyna asks dryly. Nobody responds. "Carried." She grins, "Octavian, go get Jackson's toga out of the van."

The former augur scowls at her, but heads in the direction of the caravan of buses that are going to carry the legion back to Camp Jupiter. There's a single van, mostly for luggage, Percy thinks, but Reyna has declared it the pilot car and is going to drive it back to California herself. Octavian takes his time, but he brings the toga back with him, scowl still in place.

Reyna all but ignores Octavian as she takes the toga from him with one hand and hands Jason his with the other. She hand Percy his own purple stack of fabric and says, "As retired praetors, you get to keep them." She shits her full attention to Percy, "It also means that you have access to New Rome, Greek or not, if you wish."

Percy smiles, a bit sadly, "But not Annabeth."

"No, not Annabeth," she sighs a little, "I'll work on it, but no promises." Her eyes flick to Jason, and Percy knows who she's really doing it for. The guy's giving up everything to keep his promise to Piper, Percy doubts anything Reyna can do will break them up. "Anyway," she continues and steps forward to give Jason a quick hug, then Percy, "If you're ever questing out our way and need a place to stay, send me and IM, we can probably work something out for a night."

She steps back and takes her spot at the head of the legion. As one, with the synchronicity that only a well-trained army can manage, the legion put their fists to their chests and bowed, a salute to their former leaders. Jason did the salute back to them, Percy half a step behind, and with that the army about faced and all but scattered toward the buses.

A couple of guys, Jason's friends, stop and turn long enough to toss off a more modern salute, two fingers from the forehead. It's friendly, almost mocking, and obviously means, _see ya later buddy._ Frank gives an awkward little wave, like he's not sure what to do, and Hazel wiggles her fingers a bit. They'd all said proper goodbyes at the feast the night before.

Annabeth steps forward from the crowd of campers behind the boys and slides into her spot beside Percy. Leo and Nico are a second behind her. Together, the six of them watch until the line of buses has disappeared down the narrow dirt road that leads into camp, even after the rest of Camp Half-blood has left to resume their normal schedule of activities.

Slowly, Jason lets out a breath, shaky and painful. Piper grips his hand tighter and leans against his arm. Percy claps him on the shoulder.

Jason swallows, his throat tight, and when he speaks, his voice sounds funny even to his own ears, "Well that's done... I don't suppose Dad will think about taking the statue down," it's dry, more sarcastic then questioning. He's obviously trying to break the tension in their little group. Or perhaps just in himself, he's clutching his folded toga so tightly his entire hand is turning white. Nobody answers, they just turn to look at him instead, and he sighs a little. "Thought not."

XxXx

"So what now?" Piper asks Jason later that night while they're getting ready for capture the flag.

Jason sighs a little and reaches around to adjust a strap on his armor. "Well, you, Percy, and Annabeth are going into the city for school later this week, Leo's already holed up in the bunker looking for Festus' blueprints so he can give him a body again, Nico's disappeared to Hades knows where and Frank and Hazel are on their way back to Camp Jupiter."

Piper rolls her eyes and shifts her wrist guards, "I meant for you."

Jason pretends not to hear her. "I mean, I still can't understand how you managed to make yourself Annabeth's new roommate."

"Dad made almost a hundred million on his last movie and I can talk people into giving me whatever I want, I'm sure you'll figure it out." She puts power behind her words, just a little, and tries again, "What are *you* going to do now?"

He shrugs, examining the chin strap on his helmet with far more attention than it probably needed. "Stay here I guess, I promised I would if you couldn't come with me, didn't I? And it's not like I have anywhere else to go."

"Camp's great and all, but if I stay here much longer after the year we've had, I'll probably go insane, breaks are good, once in a while, you know?" Jason doesn't say anything, doesn't really appear to be paying her any attention, but Piper keeps going anyway, like she's thinking aloud. "Maybe it's different for you, if you're not on a quest, you're at one camp or the other, and you've never done anything else. I suppose you're used to it by this point."

Jason still doesn't say anything, or look up from his helmet, but he's not even pretending to examine the perfectly fine strap anymore. His forehead is furrowed a bit, like he can't quite figure out what it is she's trying to say.

"But I don't think so."

"I've already jumped headfirst into one new world this year, why would I want to do it again?"

"Because you just moved to that camp where you can have a normal life between the monster hunts and you want to know what it's like?" She suggests softly, "Talk to Chiron, there's still time before school starts, he'll know what to do." She slides her helmet on and fumbles for the straps, her voice echoes oddly when she continues, "Or talk to Percy, his step-dad teaches at his school, maybe he knows how you can get in there. Then you'd know somebody."

Jason still doesn't look convinced.

"Think about it at least," Piper says softly. "You won't be happy here by yourself, and you know it and if you can't even try to be happy, you might as well have left with the others." She puts power behind her words again, just enough to make sure they stick, "What do *you* want?"

XxXx

He doesn't sleep well that night, and it's not just because of the constant thunderstorm in Cabin One or the big creepy statue of his dad in the middle of the room. He's always been the golden boy, the kid that shouldn't exist, the youngest centurion in centuries, and the guy that was given to Camp Half-blood to replace Percy Jackson. Nobody's ever asked him what he wants before.

He stayed because he wanted to, Jason's sure of that much. He loves Piper, or he at least he thinks he does, he wasn't going to ruin what could be the best thing that ever happened to him by leaving her behind just because she wasn't allowed to come. When he's with her he doesn't have to worry about meeting everybody's expectations or being the perfect son of Jupiter, he can just be Jason, whoever that is.

He didn't even have to think about it.

He's sixteen years old and he doesn't know a thing about himself. Okay, that might be the most normal thing about him, but isn't it time he takes a break from the running and fighting and try to figure it out?

It takes him all night to make up his mind.

XxXx

He manages to pull Chiron aside after breakfast the next morning.

"After all the work Lupa and I put into convincing your father that lifting the ban on inter-camp communication was a good idea, please don't tell me that you've suddenly changed your mind about staying."

Jason can't resist, "And what if I did?"

"Then I'd have no choice but to kill you and blame it on one of the monsters in the woods of course," the centaurs says, his eyes twinkling. He dances a bit in place, like his horse half is already getting restless. "What can I do for you my young nephew?"

"What would I have to do to get into a high school?"

Chiron raises his eyebrows and scratches his beard, "Been talking to Annabeth I see."

"Piper actually, but I wouldn't be surprised if Annabeth put her up to it," Jason laughs a bit, "makes a lot of sense actually. Do you think they're right?"

"Well I certainly don't think it could hurt, a bit of normalcy is generally a good thing." Chiron sighs, "Five year ago I might have said differently, but staying part time is probably one of the best decisions Percy's ever made." He scratches at his beard again, "We'll have to forge all of your documents of course, but that's no problem, and I've played the guardian before. You are aware that Goode isn't a boarding school?"

Jason frowns, "Goode, sir?"

"Percy's school, the one Paul Blofis teaches at," Chiron explains, "we'll have to find you a place to live if that's where you want to go, but if I know Sally Jackson like I think I do, that won't be a problem."

"Sir?"

"I trust you and Percy have no issues getting along?"

"I... no, we're like brothers at this point, well you know the kind that like each other, but..." Jason trails off as his brain catches up with the conversation.

"Indeed," Chiron says, acknowledging the unspoken question. "I'll get a hold of Sally and Paul later this morning and see what their thoughts are on the matter. Now if you'll excuse me, I have and archery class to oversee."

"Yea, of course," Jason says, but Chiron's already trotting away.

XxXx

Most of the cabins are lining up for the dinner bell when Chiron calls Jason and Percy up to the Big House.

"What's going on?" Percy asks, leaning back against his chair and popping open a can of cherry coke.

Chiron shifts in his wheelchair and glances pointedly towards Jason, who starts to speak, but is cut off almost immediately by Percy.

"Oh gods, don't tell my you changed your mind already."

Jason laughs, he can't help it, "What? No, pretty much the opposite actually, well it does involve leaving camp..." He fiddles with the tab on his can for a second.

"Oh, you talked to the girls," Percy says and then sighs when they turn to stare at him. "It was sort of my idea, when Piper got into Westgate, I said something about how all we needed was for you to start at Goode and we could have our own sitcom. They kind of... ran with it."

Jason laughs again, "And then they decided that it wouldn't be a sitcom unless we were living together too?"

Percy sighs again. "No, that was me too, I didn't think they were being serious...I suppose I should know better by now." He takes a swig of his coke. "So you talked to mom and Paul then?"

"I did this morning," Chiron cuts in, "and they are more than happy to offer Jason a place to live provided that he," the centaur raises his eyebrows, "and Piper, follow the rules, and of course that the two of you can keep from trying to kill each other."

Percy laughs, "If we were going to kill each other, it would have happened already."

"Well, there was that one time," Jason pointed out.

"That wasn't us," Percy reminds him.

Jason just grins and shrugs, "Still. But I don't want to intrude or anything..."

Percy snorts, "Don't worry about it, I mean, we've all but adopted Tyson and he takes a lot more space then you do."

"Tyson's not a son of Jupiter,' Jason points out as the dinner-bell finally rings, "there's two reason's in that sentence alone for this that not to work, but you're probably right, if it was going to happen it would have already."

"There's one more thing before you go," Chiron says as the boys get up to join the lines of campers heading towards the pavilion. "I'm sure you've noticed that the two of you plus the girls make four."

The boys freeze where they stand. They are both fully aware of what can happen when groups of demigods greater than three meet up in the real world. There had been seven of them on their last quest, and they may have all made it home, but that was mostly luck... and a warded constantly moving flying boat.

Slowly, Percy sits back down. "Are they likely to show up if we're not home?"

"Yea, we can probably handle it, we actually work pretty well together."

Chiron sighs, "Very few monsters are actually stupid, boys, I trust you know that by now, and if you spend a lot of time in the same place..."

"Right," Percy mumbles, "So what do we do?"

"Look," Jason cuts in, retaking his seat as well, "I really don't want to make Jackson's parents a target or -"

Chiron raises his eyebrows and talks over him, "It just means that we'll have to take extra precautions. We can't ward your apartment I'm afraid, but I do have permission, from Zeus no less, to let Sally and Paul inside our borders for a couple days of training so that they have a chance of defending themselves."

"You're joking," Percy says staring at him. "Paul can't even see through the mist and it been getting harder for Mom for years, how are they supposed to fight something they can't see?"

"That will be part of it, when they get here, I'll... adjust their sight as it were. It was your mother's idea," Chiron adds at Percy's disbelieving look, "Zeus was hesitant, and understandably so, but Hera and Poseidon managed to... ah... persuade him."

"Busy day," Jason murmurs.

Chiron smiles, "Indeed. Paul seems to be rather... excited at the prospect."

"He's wanted me to steal him a sword since the Battle of Manhattan," Percy says, rolling his eyes. He sighs, "Well it can't be a bad thing," he laughs a little, "it's not like I can tell t hem no. Anything else?"

"Hmmm... nope, I think that's it for now, go on then."

They're halfway to the pavilion before Jason speaks, "You're sure you're okay with this man? I'm pretty much taking over your life at this point."

"Nah, it's cool, weird maybe, but what part of our lives isn't?"

Jason laughs, "Yea, I suppose... he never said when they were coming though, did he?"

"Probably Wednesday," Percy says, absently kicking at a rock, "that's when they were coming to pick me up. I think Mom took the end of the week of anyway and Paul doesn't have to go in and set up his classroom until Monday, so we'll probably stick around until Friday or so when the Chases come to pick up the girls..." he trails off for a second, "seriously, this is beyond ridiculous."

"Your idea," Jason reminds him as they enter the pavilion and snag plates while the rest of the camp watches and wonders what took them so long. At their separate tables, Piper and Annabeth lock eyes and grin.

"Don't remind me," Percy mutters, reaching for the pizza, "the girls will do it often enough, I'm sure."

Jason's still laughing when they toss their offerings into the fire and take their seats at their separate tables.

XxXx

When Jason leaves his cabin for breakfast on Wednesday morning, he half expects to find Sally and Paul sitting at table three with Percy, despite the fact that they had said it would be closer to noon when he had 'met them' over an Iris Message the night before. Watching the Percy and his parents interact, even over an Iris Message, made him wonder what it would have been like to have a real family.

It isn't something that had ever really crossed his mind before, who needs a mom when you have enough cousins to make an army? He has always just considered himself lucky that he's always known who his father is, knowing who it is that shapes his destiny, who made him what he is he is, has always just seemed more important to him than knowing who his mortal parent is.

Sure he had wondered some, who she was, if she was looking for him, but it was more of an abstract thing. Other people have mothers, but not him. Other people have siblings; he has a sister called Thalia that he made up one day when he was feeling especially lonely, or so he used to think.

Seeing the way Percy interacts with his parents was a completely new experience for him. He had, against all his expectations, been included as part of family instantly. She kept calling him sweetie, nobody's ever called him sweetie before. When they asked Percy about Annabeth, they asked him about Piper, when they asked if Percy had heard from Tyson, they asked about Thalia. Jason had never felt like part of a family before, part of a well-oiled machine? Sure, but he never had the same *connection* with anybody that Percy seems to have with most of Camp Half-blood, except maybe Piper.

They just accepted him, no questions asked, no expectations. It was nice.

Sally had to stop herself from trying to hug Percy (or, once, him) through the Iris message so many times that he almost thought that she had some sort of condition. Paul had eventually put his arm around her shoulders to keep her on the couch and Jason was sure she was going to show up at camp early, but when he walks into the pavilion, Percy's sitting at his table by himself with all of his attention focused on his eggs.

Jason's surprised at how disappointed he feels.

Maybe this isn't just about having a normal life for a change after all.

XxXx

"See, if you can lock blades like this, you can win almost any fight, despite having the shorter weapon," Annabeth says, shifting her stance slightly so that Piper can see the way her dagger is crossed with Percy's sword.

"You'd think you'd have taught her everything you know by now," Jason says dryly, from his spot perched on a nearby fence.

"I never teach anybody everything I know," Annabeth replies, "that's just stupid. Besides, could you teach somebody everything you've learned about sword-fighting since you were seven in six months?"

Jason doesn't answer.

"That's what I thought. You're more than welcome to try though." Annabeth grins over her shoulder and steps back from Percy. "You're turn," she adds to Piper and sheathes her dagger.

As Piper draws her weapon, Jason calls out, "Lesson one, stick to the Greek style, your instincts are probably all wrong for Roman. Lesson two," he continues over Percy's laughter and Annabeth's huff of annoyance, "the Greek style's more fun anyway. See, that wasn't so hard."

Annabeth glares at him and it just makes Percy laugh harder. She gives Piper a tiny nod and steps out of the way.

Piper grins and silently draws her dagger. While Percy's still distracted, she darts forward and swipes at him. He barely gets his sword up in time to block.

"Aw, come on!" he complains as he slashes at Piper and then darts out of the way as she dodges and comes at him again.

"Try paying attention sometime," is Annabeth's only response as she leans up against the fence beside Jason and takes her helmet off, but Percy's already fully immersed in the duel.

Percy and Piper duck and dodge around each other, their blades moving so fast they're little more than bronze colored blurs as they try to catch the other by surprise. Jason's sure they won't be able to, he's almost positive that Annabeth's only taught Piper the moves Percy knows she has and that she done it using Percy's favorites because... well it's what he would have done. Judging from Annabeth's smirk as Piper gets more and more frustrated the longer the fight goes on, he's right.

Finally, probably when she thinks Percy will least expect it, Piper tries to catch his sword on her dagger like Annabeth has been trying to teach her for the last half hour or so. She manages to stop Percy's sword, but the angle isn't quite right and her dagger slips out of her hand and hits the dirt. Piper jumps back before Percy accidentally cuts her hand off. She swears under her breath in Ancient Greek.

Percy stoops and scoops her blade off the ground. "You okay?" he asks as he hands it to her hilt first.

"Yea, fine," she sighs and shakes her hand out before taking the dagger back. "I even know where I went wrong... stupid mistakes."

"Still better than we'll probably ever do," a new voice says from behind Jason.

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Blowfish," says a second.

"...hold on, those horses have wings?"

Jason doesn't even have time to think about turning around to see who it is before Percy's dropping his sword and literally pushing him off the fence. He mutters under his breath in Latin and pushes himself back to his feet, _seriously what the hell_. Piper shoots him a worried look, but he waves her off, he has worse landing when he flies on a regular basis.

Percy's hugging somebody over the top of the fence and Jason can just make out his babbled apologies. He can't quite make out who it is, but Paul is standing off to the side and staring open mouthed at the pegasi riding lessons happening over in the field, so it must be Sally.

Percy pulls back and fumbles with his helmet for a moment before handing it Annabeth. Sally climbs over the fence, and they hug again. It can't be very comfortable, Percy's still in full armor, but she doesn't seem to notice. After a moment, Sally reaches out and tugs Annabeth into the hug too.

Finally they pull apart. Percy glances at Paul and raises his eyebrows.

Sally laughs a little, wiping tears from her cheeks, "I think he was still have convinced were were making it up."

Percy rolls his eyes, and shifts his eyes to Jason, "Seriously, the guy fought in the war, hell, he's met Dad and the Party Ponies and he still thinks we're making it up."

"I don't know what all he saw during the battle," Sally says, "He looked awfully startled by Chiron when he played with the Mist, difference between knowing and seeing, and all that."

"Remind me to introduce him to Blackjack later," Percy mutters as the campers over in the field dismount and start to lead their pegasi into the stables.

Paul watches until the last wing disappears inside the large stable doors. When he turns around, his eyes are just a little too bright and he's all but bouncing on his toes with excitement.

"Careful Paul, people will start to think you've never seen a winged horse before," Percy says dryly as his step-dad seems to suddenly remember that yes he does exist.

Paul opens his mouth, probably to say that he hasn't seen a winged horse before, but shuts it again just as quickly and then says, "Did you get taller again? You really need to stop doing that."

Percy rolls his eyes, "Apparently sleeping for six months is good for me, I don't know."

Paul laughs and they hug over the fence. It's shorter than the one's Percy shared with his mom, but Jason doesn't think it's any less heartfelt. They pull apart and after some quick introductions, mostly for Piper's sake, Paul asks, "So what are we doing?"

"Annabeth's teaching Piper how to disarm a guy with a sword... we're pretty much just here to get hit."

"And get our wrists sprained," Jason can't help but add, wiggling his fingers in Annabeth's direction like an idiot.

She scowls at him, "I said I was sorry. Besides, it's not like your wrist is still sprained, we carry ambrosia everywhere for a reason." She slides her phone out of… somewhere, seriously where in her armor was she hiding that, and checks the time, "I think we have time for one more round before lunch."

Percy shrugs and reaches for his helmet. "Fine with me. Camp tour after lunch?" he asks his mom.

"Unless you have something better to do," Sally says dryly, leaning back against the fence. Annabeth leans beside her and Jason hops back up into his spot on top.

Percy grins and pulls his pen from his pocket. Within seconds, he's flicked the cap off with his thumb and is eyeing Piper warily as she draws her dagger.

XxXx

"Still seems like a waste of perfectly good food to me," Paul mutters under his breath as he dumps some of his lunch into the fire.

Sally tips some of her fries into the purple flames and mutters a thank you to Zeus for letting them in camp borders before rolling his eyes at him. "You're a big boy, you can share."

Percy sighs a little, "If you make them mad it's probably on my head, please don't."

"You do that well enough on your own," Annabeth puts in.

Piper snorts, "Please, from what I've heard, your thing with Hera started before she ever really deserved it and whatever did you do to Hermes?"

"Nobody asked you," Annabeth mutters. She goes up on her toes and kisses Percy's cheek, "See you later."

Piper sighs when everybody else turns to look at her, "I'll just… go."

"Oh goody, they're going to start hating each other again," Jason mutters, dumping some of his baby carrots into the fire, "our lives are awesome."

"Could be worse," Paul says following the boys as they head toward their end of the row of tables.

"They're roommates at Westgate," Sally reminds him when Jason exchanges a disbelieving look with Percy.

"…that would be worse."

"You think?" Percy asks him, dropping onto the bench at table three.

Jason laughs as he keeps going towards table one.

He could get used to this.


End file.
